by Jack Lewis
The figure got closer, and Heather’s hand twitched on the door handle. Finally, the black shape stopped ten feet away from her. In the darkness she couldn’t see a face, but somehow she knew that it stared at her. Her skin crawled with hundreds of invisible bugs. A voice cracked through the darkness.
“Where am I?”
She couldn’t take it anymore. The darkness was becoming so heavy she felt like it would crush her, and she felt the gaze of the thing in front of her as sure as a physical touch. She knew the danger she was throwing herself into, but the shudder of fear that ran through her made staying in the room impossible. She grabbed the handle, turned it and opened the door.
The light of the trader’s room was like a warm bath on tired skin. She felt her breath catch in her throat and she looked around with wild eyes. The long beak and hideous leather of the bounty hunter’s mask was gone. Instead, there was just Wes, sat for the first time on the other side of his desk. Seeing Heather, he got up, walked to the door and locked it.
“What the hell is in there?” said Heather, fighting to control her breathing.
Wes walked back to his desk and sat in his usual chair. Somehow, he seemed smaller in it, as though the chair had grown in his absence from it.
“Take a seat,” he said.
“I’ve spent enough sat at your desk. Tell me what the hell is happening because I’m freaking out.”
He put his hands across the table. “I’m taking credits off the Capita,” he said.
“By doing what?”
“It’s a good thing, really. You’ll understand.”
Heather had a growing urge to hit him, and she was worried she couldn’t make it stay as an urge.
“Go on.”
“They’re trialling a cure. I agreed to keep the guinea pigs hidden, and the Capita helps me out.”
Heather paced over to the window. At the edge of town she saw Charles and the Capita soldiers as their horses took them away. A few people gathered in the streets to watch them go, and at least one man looked to have blood pouring from his forehead. She turned back to face Wes.
“You didn’t do a very good job hiding them,” she said. “Considering you didn’t even lock the door.”
“We both know enough about each other to know when to keep quiet.”
Heather’s hand felt restless, so she squeezed the windowsill.
“All the bullshit you talk about. The town you’re building, one free from the Capita. And all this time you’re sucking them off. What do they say about your black market stuff?”
A smile spread on Wes’s lips. “Every ruling body needs their dirty secrets. They need someone they can turn to for the things they don’t want others to see. What they don’t know is that I funnel money into the Resistance.”
“How?”
“I have a guy on the inside. He works for the Capita, but he’s part of the good fight.”
“Who is he?”
Wes shook his head. “Come on. I can’t tell you that.”
“I’m out of here.”
Heather’s patience was a fraying thread, and she knew she had to leave the trader’s house before it snapped. She reached the door and was about to turn the handle when she heard his chair move. She looked at him and saw that he had stood up from behind the desk, showing once again his marathon-running businessman ensemble.
The trader had a look in his eyes of a hunter who had caught a rabbit in a snare.
“You know,” he said, “The Bull was asking about a DC boy, and you showed up here today trying to bleed me for information on the Resistance.”
Heather went to protest, but Wes held his hand in the air. “Oh come off it, Heather. I knew exactly what you were doing. Nobody wheedles anything out of me. You need the Resistance for something, and I have the contacts. But guess what? The information just became a lot more valuable.”
“What do you want?”
“If you want to get the boy to safety, I want all the food you’ve been growing. Every bit of it.”
11
Ed
Being in the town hall usually meant you were getting married, getting sentenced or attending a town meeting. In his years on the island, Ed had managed to avoid all three. He’d had a girlfriend a while back, but when her dad had gotten a job on the mainland he’d put his family on the first ferry away. Ed wrote to her once or twice but the silence from her end made him stop halfway through his third letter and throw it in the bin. He’d come close to a sentencing once after a drunken night ended in monkey-like vandalism of a neighbour’s car, but his dad had taken the local policeman for a pint and persuaded him to look the other way.
There was a time when the building represented everything he was terrified of in life. Housed within its stone walls were the things that adults had to deal with; lifelong unions with another person and the emotional ties that went with it. Consequences for actions no matter how ill-planned. It was a place you went when you grew up, and there was a time when Ed didn’t think that would have to happen to him. He was perfectly happy to have dad cook his meals with the food that James worked to buy. Neither of them questioned Ed or pushed him out, and he once thought that he could get through his entire life without taking care of himself.
The town hall didn’t represent terror today. Standing at the top of the street, black bars lining the side and with spirals and patterns cut into the stonework, today it meant salvation. It represented a light that could cut through the fog of the last twenty four hours.
The four of them constantly turned their heads to scan the area around them. Aside from isolated houses and crumbling walls, there were few places to hide in Golgoth. That comforted Ed because it meant they should be able to see any infected coming their way, but it also worried him. Where were they all? Had some of them not woken from their comas yet? Were they on the floors of their houses waiting to turn?
Bethelyn walked just in front of him and set their pace. She looked like she had purpose, but every so often Ed would glance at her and see an expression on her face. It was vacant, like the darkened windows of a house abandoned long ago.
Gary and Judith walked behind them. Gary was older than Ed, older than his brother James even, and their social circles had rarely collided. He remembered Gary calling on him one night after everyone on the island had heard what happened to James’s ship. He turned up at the door with the faint smell of beer on his breath. He folded his arms tightly against him, and it seemed like he couldn’t look Ed in the eye. He had a shaved head and thin body, and he wore a belt with a metal buckle in the centre that looked heavy enough to pull his trousers down. There was something fidgety about him, like a dozen itches formed on his skin at once and he wasn’t sure whether to scratch them or not.
“Heard about James,” he said.
Ed didn’t say anything. He’d heard the start of enough of these sorrowful speeches to know that his input wasn’t required. It was like people needed to tell you how sorry they were because it was an energy building inside them, like a breath they’d held too long, and they just need to let it out and they could feel better about themselves.
“Just wanted you to know there’s always a beer waiting for you at my house. If you ever need someone to talk to. Almost lost my cousin this year, so I know what you’re going through. Kinda.”
Years later Gary had put a little weight on his bones, so it seemed like the outbreak agreed with him. It was a strange feat to accomplish, given the food situation on the island, but somehow Gary’s body had stored enough of a calorie surplus to put some meat on him. Walking behind Ed with his head shifting from side to side and hands dug deep in his pockets, he still seemed like the same old Gary.
“Ed,” he said.
They stopped. There was no movement around them, and the wind had completely stopped.
“Yeah?”
“I need to check on my cousin.”
Ed looked at the town hall. He’d bought into Bethelyn’s idea, and he wanted to get into
the cellar and see what they’d prepared. He had the vague idea of staying there for a while in relative safety, but an even bigger part of him wanted to get off the island.
“You’ve not been to see him yet?” said Ed.
Gary scratched his ear, and then his cheek. He wasn’t rough, but even the slightest contact of his fingers on his skin seemed to leave red prints.
“I didn’t dare. I heard screaming and I just shut my door. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I only came out because I saw you guys.”
Ed knew how he felt. Only an hour earlier he’d found Bethelyn and her daughter in comas in his bedroom, and he couldn’t bring himself to check on them. Gary wasn’t a coward; he just had the same reaction to things as any sane human. People think being brave is great, but being scared is just as good a survival mechanism.
He knew about Gary’s cousin, of course. About the cancer and the treatments and how his battle to survive it tore his family apart. He had no doubt that at some point Gary had been in the same position as Ed. He’d probably sat on his sofa with a well-wisher across from him and prayed they’d just get the hell out of his house and leave him alone.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Sure. We can go check.”
Judith coughed into her hand and then spoke. “I think we should get to the hall first. Set up a base.”
She looked around her. The area was deserted, but there was something in the air. Anticipation, static. The sense that something was coming. Ed knew that they all felt it. It was like being in Pompeii hours before the eruption.
“I can’t leave him,” said Gary.
“You’ve left him once already, what’s the difference?” said Judith.
Judith Plum was a name well-known on the island. In a population as small as theirs it was hard for people not to know who you were, but even on the island she’d gained herself a kind of celebrity. It was Judith who had argued for imposing an entry ban shortly after the outbreak. It was Judith who proposed rationing, and it was Judith who said families who didn’t grow crops should get a smaller share of food. She had been an outspoken voice for decades, but her opinions used to be limited to what should be on the school curriculum and who should be on the council committee. Now her ideas stretched to how they should shape their survival.
She had a sharp tongue and a loud voice, and in Ed’s experience the people who shouted loudest usually won. If you could look someone in the eye and drown out their words with your own, it didn’t matter if you were right or wrong.
Gary pulled his hands out of his pockets. He drew his coat closer to him.
“I need to check on him. For Christ sake, Julie. What if it was your family?”
“We’ve all got families, Gary.”
Bethelyn threw her arms out as though in desperation. From the way she clenched the poker in her hand, Ed was worried she might lash out with it. She seemed like an elastic band that was being prised apart inch by inch until the rubber started to perish and it threatened to snap.
“This is how people die,” she said. “They split up and go their own way and think that by some happy fucking coincidence they’ll all wind up alive and together again. If you go and look for your cousin, who’s probably already dead, then you’re done. I’ll make sure I put this poker in your skull when you come after me, and then I’ll stab you again just for your sheer stupidity. We stick together.”
Not even Ed knew what to say. They’d all seen on the news how dangerous the infected were, and Ed had witnessed it first-hand today. Within an hour of waking up he’d seen a woman kill her husband, a mother kill her child.
“We’ll get set up in the hall first,” he said. “Make somewhere safe. Then we’ll check for survivors. Your cousin will be the first.”
Gary seemed like he was going to protest, but then he looked around him and said nothing. He could have gone on his own, of course. Nobody could stop him. The way he fell in line told Ed how scared he was.
Ed saw movement in the corner of his eye. At the bottom of the hill, shambling up the gentle slope, were two people. For a second he hoped they might be alive, but the way they carried themselves meant they weren’t.
“How many of us are on the island?” he said.
“Forty men and women by last count,” said Bethelyn.
“It’s more than that,” said Judith.
Bethelyn fixed her a look. Without words, she told the woman to shut up.
Judith didn’t seem fazed by it. “I’m telling you it’s more like sixty.”
“We did a census. I know damn well that there are forty.”
Judith gave a mocking smile. “Oh, look at you. Miss I’m-on-the-council. Whatever. It doesn’t make you special, you know.”
“You were on the council weren’t you?” said Bethelyn. “Until they kicked you off for being a mouthy bitch.”
The harsh tones and raised voices made Ed tense. He’d always turned from conflict when he saw it coming. When James and dad used to argue about him joining the navy, which got especially bad when they’d had a drink, Ed used to go upstairs, go into his room and blast music in protest.
“Do you guys not realise what’s happening?” he said. “There’s a chance that we actually might die. This isn’t the newscasts, you know. You can’t just turn off the TV and see it disappear. We’re in trouble, and we need to help each other get out of it.”
Judith raised a finger in the air and was going to speak when Ed cut her off. He was sick of it. All those years of arguments in his house and he’d never said a word. He was done with it.
“Shut up.” He turned to Bethelyn. "So there are forty adults. How about children?”
“Twelve.”
“There are four of us. We’ve killed three infected. There are two at the bottom of the street. So where the hell are the others?”
He suddenly realised that he had included April in the number of infected. He’d reeled it off like she was just a statistic, and the coldness of it made him want to scream at himself. He wanted to dig a hole and bury himself in the soil.
He was about to apologise to Bethelyn, when he remembered the slap. She’ll grieve in her own time, he reminded himself. Could anyone in the world have told you how to grieve when James went?
“Maybe they’re all in their houses,” said Gary.
Ed thought about it. The infected were stupid, so they probably didn’t have the brain power to figure out how to open doors. That meant some of them, at least, couldn’t get to them. The only problem would come if they started to try and break through their doors. Most houses on Golgoth were decades old, and a lot of the builders were amateurs at best. He doubted the cheap, ancient wood would survive long under stress.
“Let’s hope they stay that way. Come on. Let’s get the guns, that’s the first step. I don’t want to think too far past that.”
When they reached the town hall they found that nature had blocked their way. An elm tree had blown down in the storm, and the thick trunk covered the entrance doors. Golgoth had always been a place of mild climate, and it seemed like in the last twenty four hours the forces of the world had spent their pent up aggression on the surface of the island. A storm strong enough to uproot an elm had to be something spectacular.
Bethelyn pointed up at the first floor, where a row of windows were cut into the stone. There was a ledge outside it, and the gutter than ran along it was full of leaves.
“We need to climb up and break in,” she said.
Ed took a look behind him. The two infected had become four, and they had cut the distance between them and the survivors by half. He could make out their faces now, but he didn’t want to say their names. The infection had turned their skin grey and given them faraway stares that lacked the trace of life.
Ed was the first to climb up the drainpipe. He’d always been a good climber since he and James used to make a sport of scurrying up the wall of their house and sitting on the roof. James sometimes stole a couple of beers from dad’s never ending supp
ly and they’d drink them silently and watch the sea.
Judith insisted she was next, and her climb was more laboured than Ed’s. In the time it took her to reach the ledge the infected had gotten even closer until they were only fifty feet away. Ed put his hand out and hauled her up next to him. As soon as she sat on the ledge she pulled her hand away and rubbed it on her coat as if it was dirty.
“You go next,” said Gary, and nodded at Bethelyn.
He was trying to be brave, Ed realised, and he probably regretted it as soon as he said the words. Bethelyn didn’t move. Instead she stared at the hill behind them as the infected walked relentlessly on.
“Bethelyn,” said Ed.
She turned, and for a second the emptiness of her eyes sent a shudder through him. He’d seen that kind of look before, but it was back in school. It was the expression he’d seen in a history book when they learnt about the first of the old wars. He remembered a grainy photograph where a soldier lay in a trench with a stare as empty as the muddy hole around him.
